Bruce Springsteen Releases Famous 1978 Cleveland Concert

Five weeks after launching a site dedicated to selling concerts from his archive, Bruce Springsteen has given a second offering, and it's one of his most celebrated performances. Fans can now download a remastered copy of the Aug. 9, 1978 show at the Agora in Cleveland.

The nearly three-hour concert was originally broadcast live on WMMS as a celebration of the station's 10th anniversary. It was one of five dates on the 'Darkness on the Edge of Town' tour that were simulcast on the radio. As a result, it has become one of Springsteen's most oft-bootlegged shows, capturing the band in a small theater at the very moment when he was beginning to make the jump to arenas. It is widely considered to be one of the greatest nights in the history of the E Street Band.

However, Toby Scott, Springsteen's longtime engineer, had trouble tracking down a useable copy. "Initially, what Toby found in [Springsteen's] archives was not a great-sounding transfer of the reels that they'd had," Brad Serling of nugs.net, which has partnered with Springsteen on the site, told Backstreets. "Serendipitously, Toby found a box of seven reels that been on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and that was it. The reels — the pre-FM, stereo mix of this show — had gone missing, and it turns out they were in this box that was on loan to the Rock Hall. And Toby had managed to find it just in time."

The tapes were then remastered by Plangent Processes, the same company that worked on Springsteen's recent box set of his first seven albums. It can be purchased as as mp3s ($9.95), FLAC ($12.95), CD ($23.00) and HD-Audion ($24.95) at Springsteen's website.